CoverBoom's Blog

Yelp reviews; keeping a healthy perspective is best

March 11th, 2011 • Posted by Stephany Toman • Permalink

As prospective customers increasingly search the Web prior to picking a restaurant, and often use Yelp as the 'go to' venue for reviews, we often fret about just what's been written out there and what we can do to address and remedy bad reviews.

While reviews are good as a whole, keep in mind that not all of them warrant your undue concern. Derek Brown's blog post, A Field Guide to Yelp's Unhappy, Unhelpful Eaters, puts a little humor, and perspective around the process.

...I turned to Yelp reviews of well-regarded places that I've been. While looking through those reviews, I noticed a flock of reviews lacking rigor, ethics, and discretion. They completely missed the mark. Are these reviews what people are basing their dining decisions on? 

 

Enjoy!


2 Responses...

Anonymous says:
March 23, 2011 at 10:27 AM
I couldn't agree more with your assessment of Yelp reviewers. In my restaurant, someone recently wrote a review to criticize that the meatballs were too meaty and that the Ostrich left them unimpressed, while admitting they had no idea what Ostrich would or should taste like. When I wrote back to them apologizing for our "shortcomings", offering to compliment their next Dinner, they enthusiastically added another star to the review. Another diner ripped apart our two best selling, most well liked and cherished dishes, saying it was basically garbage. Unfortunately, that's what happens when the power of the pen falls into young, inexperienced and often overzealous hands, restaurants tend to pay the consequences. The better news, however, is that in my dealings with so many diners who do look at reviews from different sites before making reservations at particular restaurants, the general consensus is that Yelp reviews (ers) are not as highly thought of as Open Table and Zagat's reviews. They tend to come from more experienced, refined diners who will not complain that the price of a Dover Sole is higher than that of a Lemon Sole. They in turn remember very well what their mothers told them, that you indeed pay for what you get and get what you pay for!
Anonymous says:
April 6, 2011 at 5:38 PM
Here is another funny article on same topic : http://blogs.wherethelocalseat.com/post/2010/10/How-helpful-are-online-user-reviews.aspx
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